MORGEN
Brett

• 1. Early life
• 2. Career

Brett D. Morgen is an American documentary filmmaker. His directorial credits include The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002), Crossfire Hurricane (2012), Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015), Jane (2017), and Moonage Daydream (2022).

Early life

Morgen was born October 11, 1968, in Los Angeles, California. He was named after USC football lineman Britt Williams, who was team captain in 1961, but his parents misspelled the name. He was raised in the San Fernando Valley, primarily in Studio City, where his father worked as a high school physical education teacher. According to Morgen, he was an avid movie fan from a young age, and knew he wanted to be a filmmaker. He attended the Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California.

Morgen attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he earned a B.A. in history in 1987, before graduating with an MFA in filmmaking from New York University in 1991.

Career

Morgen made Ollie's Army while a student at New York University. The film focuses on the exploits of the James Madison University college Republicans during Oliver North's senatorial campaign of 1994.

On the Ropes was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000 for Best Documentary. The boxing documentary was directed by Morgen and Nanette Burstein, and examined the lives of three aspiring prizefighters and their coach. The film won Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary by the Directors Guild of America.

The Kid Stays in the Picture is a documentary biopic about film producer Robert Evans, focusing on his major hits, like The Godfather, and his tumultuous personal life. Once again, Morgen teamed with Nanette Burstein.

Chicago 10 is a film about the Chicago Eight. The film uses animation and celebrity voice-overs from Hank Azaria, Dylan Baker, Nick Nolte, Mark Ruffalo, Roy Scheider, Liev Schreiber, James Urbaniak, and Jeffrey Wright.

June 17th, 1994 aired on ESPN as an episode of 30 for 30 and featured on-air commentary by Morgen. It was the only 30 for 30 episode to date that included no interviews or voice-overs, consisting solely of the actual TV footage on June 17, 1994. This was the date of the O. J. Simpson slow-moving police chase, and the other important sports stories of that day that were mostly ignored, due to the American public's fascination with Simpson.

Next, Morgan directed Crossfire Hurricane (2012), a documentary on The Rolling Stones, followed by the Kurt Cobain documentary film Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2017). His next film was Jane (2017), which follows the life of primatologist Jane Goodall, produced by National Geographic.

Morgen began working on the David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream in 2017. The film was released theatrically in 2022 after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival.